July 2021

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Saturday morning, sipping our coffee, I got an idea. I’d been wanting to visit the Comanche National Grassland for some time, but being in one of the most remote regions of southeastern Colorado, it isn’t exactly on the way anywhere.

So, I began to think aloud with the hubster. Why not just head there, TODAY? Sleep in the car? It might be extra cozy, but the three of us could most certainly fit. Yeah, yeah. But where exactly would we park the car to sleep? We checked the map. What’s nearby? Springfield. Hmmmm. And then Greg is on the phone with the kindly fella at the Crawford Motel. There is a room! Dog friendly. Alright, already. Let’s shower and go, go, go!

It was a glorious drive of long views, windmills and turbines, grain elevators. Clouds. Sunflowers. Every splendor of the beautifully flat half of my native state.

Springfield was quiet, and the park was within eye-shot of the motel, complete with nesting vultures, at least twenty-six tucking in for the night.

Oh, and Watson’s BBQ in Eads, well worth a stop and stretch of the legs!

Awe

peony
Apache plume
ninebark

I heard a story on the radio about AWE. How experiencing it on the daily creates happiness and resiliency. I thought on it, a steady stream of images flashing in my mind, of big things and small things that inspire me, and decided whomever was speaking had the right idea.

Whenever I am awash in the sensation of awe, difficulties fade into the background. I am more grounded in the present moment. This, the only one I truly have. I’m able to feel abundance rather than scarcity. And what a feeling that is!

So, right now, I am dedicating this post to it.

This boy, my cousin Scott’s oldest, whom I adore.

Joanie and the eight year-old! The three of them came down for a few days, and all manner of fun was had. At hockey camp, the zoo, the delicious I-Cool ice cream, hanging out on the back porch, sipping mojitos with mint from our own patch, dashing around on scooters and perusing the garden.

prickly pear – so many flowers this year!
milkweed
yucca
a heavy rain shower
traditional hyssop
feverfew – a childhood rendering of flowers come to life
wall flowers – the excitement of the multi-color and dazzle of veining
callirhoe
rose
ratibida
mallow and teeny-tiny spider
foxglove
new life on the lodgepole
How’s your Aspen?
I, as a terribly literal child, didn’t catch the drift of this popular t-shirt slogan of my childhood.

Thursday morning’s garden. It rained and thundered and flashed with the brightest lightning over night, my favorite kind of storm.

Oh, and the baby birds this year, robin and finch and chickadee. The chickadees made a nest in our wee bird house again this year. Different from last because I witnessed the little ones poke their heads out, contemplating their first flight. Mostly fearful, not yet ready, save one, brazen and slightly unsteady then out and actually flying. Awe inspiring, indeed.

Taller

Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.

Karle Wilson Baker

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